Road trip, Martinique style.

Les Trois Islets Travel Blog

In the morning we grab our dive gear and optimistically head off to the marina near Sofitel in Les Trois Islets.

30 minutes later we run -- fast! -- from the marina. No diving today! There seems to be one operator, Planet Bleue, and boy are they ever popular! People just kept streaming on the two crowded boats. So we made an executive decision - ROAD TRIP!

There is a Hertz located conveniently from the hotel, and the kind man who works there sets us us with a car pronto, for 50 Euros per day. Off we go to the South, towards Les Anses and Diamond Rock.

We stop for a stroll and a lunch at La Grand Anse. This being Martinique, the visitors are mainly from France. The visitors being from France, there is a lot of smoking going on. Smoking while wading.

Planning the day's adventures.

Smoking between courses at lunch. Smoking between bites. It gets to be a bit much, especially if you really hate cigeratte smoke. I do. Of course, we have a long wait for our food. We smoke our neighbor's cigerette smoke and wait. More waiting. Waiting. Finally our food comes out, and my vegetarian salad is laden with cubed ham! Steve gets a bit more than he bargained for with a grilled whole fish, bones, eyes and all. He digs in gamely, while I send mine back for a redo. More waiting.

Finally we are off. Along the way we stop at everything of interest. The smallest house on the island. Big white statues on the beach (They are unlabeled and Fodor's is no help, so they are to remain a mystery.) Clement, a rum distillery. Panoramic viewpoints.

All in all we spend an excellent day exploring a beautiful but rather crowded Southern half of island. If you like to road trip, a drive though Martinique is easy, breezy, and quite rewarding.